Impact of COVID‐19 on the Renewable Energy Sector and Mitigation Strategies

Abstract

This review explores the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the renewable energy (RE) sector, especially in countries with the highest RE capacities, e.g., the USA, China, India, and the EU. It highlights stimulus packages put in place by governments worldwide and their sustainability to cushion the RE sector. Commissioning of RE projects has stalled due to lack of funding allocation and interruptions in the supply of equipment and components due to lockdown measures. Despite the need to fund COVID‐19 vaccination programs and other related health services, the world must not neglect other sectors of the economy, creating more problems, such as worsening the climate change situation in the long run. This review aims to present the information needed to sustain future energy during the COVID‐19 global pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 on the US renewable and non-renewable energy consumption: a sectoral analysis based on quantile on quantile regression approach

“…The study found the instability in consumption at different quantile in selected economic sectors. This difference is not surprising as the economy faces partial lockdown and distance measures carried by the government sporadically (Olabi et al 2022 ; Jiang et al ( 2021 );. Therefore, consumption decreased sharply during and after lifting the lockdown.…”

“…Because of restrictions imposed on people’s mobility and activities, significant changes were noticed in renewable and non-renewable energy sources. According to Olabi et al ( 2022 ), renewable energy sources are also significantly influenced by COVID-19, especially wind and solar, which have a considerable share in renewable energy sources. The USA, India, Italy, South Korea, and China experienced a cut down in energy demand and coal output up to 40%, 31%, 20%, 11%, and 9% individually (Brosemer et al 2020 ; Asfour et al 2021 ).…”

“…The USA, India, Italy, South Korea, and China experienced a cut down in energy demand and coal output up to 40%, 31%, 20%, 11%, and 9% individually (Brosemer et al 2020 ; Asfour et al 2021 ). There was a 50% fall in USA jet fuel and a 30% reduction in gasoline consumption, while carbon emissions shrank 15% in the USA (Olabi et al 2022 ). Jiang et al ( 2021 ) predicted a demand drop of 626.6 million tons of oil equivalent worldwide under moderate constraints, partial lockdown, and complete lockdown.…”

Renewable Energy for Sustainable Development in Developing Countries: Benefits to the Environment

“…Similarly, Usman and Makhdum [7] argued that "renewable energy consumption could not underestimate to achieve sustainable development goals". Recently, Olabi et al [8] focus on "the investigation of the relationship between renewable energy consumption, economic growth and sustainable development". Razmi et al [9] highlighted that "economic growth rate significantly affects hydroelectric power, wind, solar and biomass energies in developing countries".…”

Recent Advances on CO2 Mitigation Technologies: On the Role of Hydrogenation Route via Green H2

“…These reports have concluded that the outbreak caused serious problems in the renewable energy sector, such as supply chain delays, difficulties in tax stock markets and inability and/or risk for the investors to benefit from government incentives and funds, which were allocated instead towards pandemic relief packages [51,52]. These facts have caused a postponement of many projects and an inevitable drop in the employment of RES energy projects and are further corroborated by several individual papers published after the coronavirus outbreak [53][54][55][56], highlighting the interconnectivity between various sectors and aspects in the modern, globalized economy. Another, equally important factor that inevitably needs to be accounted for with regard to energy transition is no other than the recent energy crisis further exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.…”